


Straight razors and bubble baths

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asphyxiation, Bathing/Washing, Bathrooms, Choking, Facial Shaving, Knifeplay, Love, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Murder Fantasies, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Sexual Tension, Straight Razors, Time Travel, Trust, Well technically Razor Play
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: It was a game of trust, really.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 14
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

This game was all about trust, that was what Harry told himself as he sat in the bathroom, and more precisely in the bath and the bathwater, that was so hot it coloured every inch of his skin a tight, searing, pink. That was all it was, just a reckless experiment to see if he could trust Tom, and if he couldn’t—well—he could cross that bridge when he came to it. 

He never used to be so careless. 

When Harry had first arrived back here in time some six months ago now, he’d had a vague semblance of a plan to eradicate a monster before it was properly fashioned into shape. That wasn’t quite how it had gone, though. Because, as it turned out, rent was more expensive than Harry anticipated, and assimilating himself had been harder than he expected, and overall, the entire experience hadn’t been as immediately successful as he’d envisaged. 

But, eventually, he’d found a workable equilibrium with the very person he came here to eradicate: Tom’s funds and, apparently, his habitation standards, were equally low and they just sort of… found each other. Despite the convenience, it wasn’t always an easy cohabitation because Tom spawned books—there were piles of them all over the apartment since Harry had long given up trying to prevent their accumulation—and, of course, there was his, filled-to-the-brim, social calendar that had him apparating home at the most unsociable hours. 

Apparently, good looks and flairs of charisma were enough to sustain rich people’s fascination, and as such everyone wanted Tom’s company, so much so that he was usually only home in the evening once or twice a week; though, just recently he’d been hanging around more often. Electing to stay in to spend the evening reading—sharing the small sofa with Harry—even at the expense of an invitation to some glitzy event or other. 

Harry didn’t mind; if he was being honest it gave him a thrill to know Tom had chosen him, whether that was actually his intention or not, instead of some fancy function with one of his glamorous, rich, friends. Tom was home tonight; that was why Harry had announced he was claiming the bath and a good two days’ worth of hot water to go in it and had left before Tom could protest. 

But, now that he was in the bath, he needed Tom, otherwise, none of this would have any purpose, and Harry was having to remind himself more and more often that coming back here _had_ been with a purpose in mind. So, swallowing down the last of his apprehensions, he called out: 

“Umm Tom?” he said, his voice sounding slightly strangled as it bounced off the walls of their small bathroom, and out the open door, “can you come in here for a minute?”

The apartment was small, and it could be quite cosy in winter, but, more importantly, sound travelled and as soon as he’d spoken, Harry heard the noise of a someone moving from the sitting room. Just the squeaking of the sofa as Tom stood up, and the scraping of a door that didn’t quite fit the frame as it opened and closed. Then there was the familiar pace of Tom’s footfalls against the floorboards of the corridor.

Like a prisoner anticipating his imminent execution, Harry cast his gaze down to the bathwater and the strategic placement of bubbles—their one shared luxury—it was too hot in the warm, but at least part of that was the swelling anticipation in his stomach. Trying to remember the purpose of this exercise, Harry exhaled slowly and reached his hand out to the edge of the bath where they kept the straight razor and picked it up.

It was heavy in his palm, and the pearl handle was smooth and warm and damp with condensation; originally it was a gift from someone who knew Tom well enough to know that he liked expensive, pretty, things that were as dangerous as they were handsome; just like him. 

When Harry looked back up, Tom was standing there, his body sharp against the dark square of black in the corridor; the dull lights of the bathroom were catching on the edge of his cheek, and casting pretty, dripping, shadows over his face. Though, they caught heavily on the corner of his upturned mouth in such a way that Harry’s mouth felt dry and swallowing became harder than it should.

After seeing that it was not, in fact, any sort of emergency, Tom leaned casually against the doorframe, his shoulder digging into the wood and making his jumper crease. Harry let his eyes linger longer than necessary on Tom’s face, admiring the fashioned contour of his jaw and the shape of his lips as he half-smiled, before sliding a little lower and appreciating the strong lines of his throat, and the shadows that gathered where the fabric of his jumper, met his skin. 

When Tom said nothing to reproach him for his obvious staring, Harry allowed himself the small liberty of looking at the rest of Tom—the parts that it was so much harder to catch a passing glance at, when they met in the door or sat beside one another on the sofa. For instance, the way that his jumper clung to him in the best way, the olive shade that would have made anyone else look sickly, bringing out the shadows embedded in his skin, and the flecks of green in his eyes.

Tom looked good—well—he _always_ looked good, but there was something about him today that was ever so slightly different. Perhaps, it was slackness of his shoulders and laxity in his stance as he leaned further into the doorframe and tilted his head to the side, still watching carefully and trying to read the room. 

“Well,” Tom said eventually and with the hint of a smile, “what do we have here?” As he spoke, Tom’s eyes dipped over his body; Harry could feel the gaze tracing the line of his shoulder and down the length of his arm and lingering on the surface of the water in places it shouldn’t. Tom quirked an eyebrow at him and licked his lips, before bringing his gaze back up to meet Harry’s. 

But, by that point, Harry felt his face warming and he knew that the tips of his ears must be flushed an obnoxious shade of pink—they always gave him away. It was Tom’s fault, he had this way with language, and even more so with mannerisms, that made every conversation feel so unbearably tantalising, as though there was an electrical undercurrent running between them that made his fingers tingle and his heart stutter. 

Harry swallowed; it was probably why Tom was such a compelling salesman because he could construct this artificial intimacy with people—he could make them feel _special_ with nothing more than a few simple words and the touch of his arm against theirs. Tom had singlehandedly mastered the art of turning emotional manipulation into a currency, and his economic theory on it was to spend, spend, spend. 

Which really only served as another warning that Harry had thoroughly ignored. In fact, everything about Tom was a warning sign—a great blaring siren going off in the back of his head that told him not to accept those smiles and not to read anything into the way Tom’s eyes lingered so shamelessly on the soapsuds that ran down his chest. But since when had Harry paid attention to warning signs?

He dipped his head, hiding his gaze for a moment, before raising it again with a little more confidence. “I want you to help me…” Harry started, though he heard himself trailing off when he had to say the crucial part of that sentence—Merlin, he was regretting initiating this already. He swallowed again. “I want you to help me shave.” 

Sensing that wasn’t enough, Harry added, “my hands shake,” by way of excuse, holding up the razor and waving it a little as he did so. It wasn’t a lie as such, his hands _did_ shake, but not to the extent that he couldn’t hold a razor—they only did that when Tom was around—but they did shake somewhat irritatingly.

Tom just continued to watch him for a moment, an eyebrow slightly raised, and his arms now folded across his chest, the fingers tapping out some forgotten little tune over his forearm. “You want me to…” he started, only ending the sentence with a gesture to his own jawline. Harry nodded, suddenly feeling a rush of foolishness; it had seemed a perfectly decent request in his head, but now with Tom standing there, looking contemplative—as though he was trying to discern Harry’s angle—he wasn’t so sure.

For another, long, pause, Tom continued to watch; his eyes remaining steadily on Harry even as his mind clearly whirred away, calculating risks and drawbacks, and comparing them to the possibilities and benefits. As he did so, his arms unfolded themselves again and he smoothed down the line of his jumper. Harry watched that action with too much enthusiasm. 

Tom wore expensive clothes because, despite their similar situations, he had one thing that Harry didn’t: expensive friends that would have bought him anything just to get him to glance in their direction. The worst offenders were Malfoy and Rosier, and Harry could scarcely go a week without finding at least one, if not both, at the door, or in the kitchen sipping at some Earl Grey they’d brought with them, or sitting too close to Tom on the sofa; their hands on his shoulder or his thigh, and their eyes watching his mouth a little too intently. 

Harry knew what they wanted because he might just want it too—not that he was prepared to admit that private, innermost, thought, out loud. Tom might have been an attractive man, but he would become a monster soon enough. Except, and this was the problem, he hadn’t yet; in fact, right now, the worst things about Tom were his underhand retail techniques and his Machiavellian approach to his personal life. 

Neither of which seemed to justify his death. 

Tom interrupted his thoughts. “Alright, I’ll help you,” he said, keeping his tone unnaturally steady, and not moving from his position against the doorframe, even though the wood must have been digging right into the bone for a while now. “Assuming you _trust_ me, that is.”

Harry swallowed hard and slid his hand into the water. It could have been a coincidence, but the emphasis, that slight intonation that Tom put on that word sounded anything but innocent in its intentions. But Harry did have a failsafe—if he needed to, he could summon his wand, which was currently concealed in the laundry basket and at least buy himself some time.

Not that he wanted it to come to that, after all, he might be good, but so was Tom. And whilst he’d never seen Tom duel with anyone, Harry could still feel the magic that radiated off him in these thick tendrils that wrapped themselves around anything they could get a hold of. Even indirectly, Tom’s magic was sticky, and viscous on the skin like boiling sugar and Harry wasn’t entirely convinced that he’d like to be caught up in it. 

Continuing to hold Tom’s gaze, Harry spoke. “You know I trust you,” he said, carefully, though even that tasted somewhat like a lie. For the first couple of weeks of living with Tom, Harry had barely slept, somehow convincing himself that Tom had worked out exactly who he was and was now simply biding his time before the kill. But, eventually, Harry had managed to convince himself that it was quite impossible for Tom to know anything incriminating.

The uneasiness never went away, though, not even when they were sitting together on the sofa, sharing a pot of tea in comfortable silence. There was just a slipperiness stitched into Tom’s physicality and it always made Harry’s heart ache and his stomach twist and shrivel for reasons he couldn’t quite place, especially when Tom smiled. 

Tom was smiling the same way now, as he stepped properly into the room, pushing the door closed behind him, and without turning around, clicking the lock shut as well. Under the water, Harry clenched his hand into a fist and forced himself to breathe slowly; the whole bathroom felt that much smaller and that much more intimate when they were locked inside it together. 

“ _Should_ you, trust me, though?” Tom said, conversationally as he reached down to pull at the hem of his jumper, in preparation for taking it off, “after all, I’m not sure that I trust you, Harry.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I have no self-control this is now four chapters and has, apparently, developed feelings.

“Why don’t you trust me?” Harry asked, trying to keep his voice steady even when his pulse was thudding hard in his neck and clouding up all his thoughts. Even after Harry had decided that Tom couldn’t possibly _know_ , he still felt him watching with that curious expression, when he said something that didn’t quite fit with this time. But, still, he didn’t expect Tom to admit distrust so brazenly; it felt rather too… obvious, as though he was playing Harry into a labyrinth and deriving pleasure from the act. 

Tom interrupted him. “Myriad reasons,” he said, continuing his unnerving casualness, as he pulled his jumper over his head with all the ease in the world, before folding it neatly and placing it on top of the laundry basket. With the same poise and distinct self-possession, Tom turned his gaze towards Harry and watched him steadily as he rolled up his sleeves; taking his time to fold the fabric in on itself, his fingers just tracing over the skin on his arms.

And— _Merlin_ —Tom was unfairly attractive; all strong, snaking lines that had Harry looking in the wrong places, and a certain physicality that was almost suffocating in its intensity. By all conventional standards of good taste and aesthetic pleasure, Tom was unparalleled, but it wasn’t merely his physical appearance—it was more than that—it was the magnetism he had buried in his bones that made you want to be close to him, and the enthralling way that he spoke, and the hypnotic way that he smiled. 

Tom was smiling at him now and Harry jerked his gaze away so violently he turned his entire body to face the other direction, which just so happened to be the empty, tiled, wall. What made the embarrassment of being caught staring, worse though, was that he could still _hear_ Tom: the tread of his feet against the wood of the floor and the crinkle of his shirt as he rolled up the other sleeve. It was an unbearable sound that brought back unbearable memories because Harry would be lying if he said he didn’t think about Tom when he was just in shirt and slacks.

It had been what Tom was wearing on the day that Harry, although he wouldn’t admit it, just couldn’t get out of his head; the one that had been all but consuming his every thought ever since he’d first thought about trusting Tom. It had been on one of Tom’s rare days off, and when his social calendar had apparently failed to provide him with anything better to do, and Harry had come home a little earlier than usual.

He could still remember hearing through Tom’s door, the clipped tone Malfoy had been using—talking nineteen to the dozen as usual—and the crinkle of Tom’s shirt, and the way Malfoy shut up so suddenly. Any _normal_ person would have walked away, but for reasons Harry was unwilling to dissect, he’d stayed in the kitchen, just listening; at first to the silence, then to the murmured direction, then to a groan, and then to a whole transcript of increasingly appalling sounds.

Of course, Harry could have left the apartment for a while—a decent flatmate might have done—but he had only moved, relocating to his own room and standing with his head pressed against the connecting wall between his and Tom’s room, and he’d listened to _every_ strikingly scandalous sound. Dinner had been awkward that night, and Harry had spent most of it staring at his plate, pushing a carrot around with his fork, and trying not to think about what Tom had been doing in his shirt and slacks.

“Including, of course…” Tom said, snapping him out of that daydream, “…the fact that you don’t actually trust me, do you, Harry?”

Harry turned back to face him and swallowed hard when he met Tom’s eyes. He was standing close to the tub now, not kneeling because this was about power as much as trust, and Tom thought he had some power when he stood there, the glazed light of the sun spilling down his face and catching in his smile.  
“And, anyway, I thought trust was supposed to be reciprocal,” he said, emphasising the final word, as though they already had an agreement—they didn’t. All that had ever existed were stares—long, lingering, yearning stares—that made Harry’s legs feel weak and his heart flutter for stupid reasons. 

“Why would you think that?” Harry said, keeping his eyes on Tom even as he walked, slowly and deliberately, around the bathtub, doing his utmost to make the wood squeak with every step.  
“Because that’s what trust is, Harry,” he said, his fingers scraping over the edge of the bath, getting close enough to Harry’s skin to make it prickle uncomfortably.

“You have faith in me, and I have faith in you,” he continued, his fingers leaving the lips of the bath and skimming over the bone of Harry’s shoulder; Tom’s skin was warm and his touch was gentle—painfully so—as though he was touching glass, and Harry had to fight the urge to lean back against the edge of the bath and press his neck into Tom’s touch.

“And,” Tom continued, “it doesn’t work if one of us decides to play dirty.” Suddenly dropping his hand away from Harry’s shoulder, as he spoke, and using his knuckles to knock against the lip of the bath. The suddenness of the movement and its crisp sound made Harry jolt and the bathwater water ripple outward.

Tom just smiled—a little too pleased with himself—Harry could see his reaction in the small mirror on the opposite wall. The one that was currently half-coated with condensation, but still gave him this hazed view of the world, like a room visible through curls of smoke. Though, the dark, black, silhouette of Tom, blotting out the glow of the sun was easy to see; he stood there a little longer, watching Harry in the reflection of the mirror, and despite himself, Harry felt his heart pick up.

It always did when he found himself staring at Tom. 

As if to deliberately interrupt his thoughts, Tom took the opportunity to actually kneel down behind him, and the glaze of the sun slid back into the room, turning the water to a pool of peach-gold, and giving Harry’s skin an additional flush. The sight seemed to make Tom smile with some emotion that was hidden by a dip of his head before Harry could properly identify it.

When Tom looked up again, he was still smiling, but it was the same way that he usually smiled—with a sleek, predaciousness that either made people nervous or endeared him to them. Somehow, it usually made Harry an uncomfortable combination of both because his heart thudded, heavy, in his chest, and his hands would get all twitchy, but he still wanted to be _near_ Tom, he still wanted to see him, and talk to him; he wanted to have him close when no one else could.

“So, Harry…” Tom said, leaning his arms against the side of the bath, and dipping his fingers down to touch the surface of the water only a couple of inches from Harry’s bare skin, “…shall we begin?” As he spoke, Tom raised his eyes to meet Harry’s in the steamed-up mirror, and Harry found himself clenching his hand under the water and nodding, suddenly quite unable to find the words that should have been sitting, ready and waiting, on his tongue.


	3. Chapter 3

Tom was just as gentle with the lather as he had been touching Harry’s skin; he took his time swirling the brush around and around in the lather bowl, and for the entire time, Harry watched him in the mirror, seeing how his eyes rarely drifted, and how the line of his jaw was emphasised by the shadows cutting through the room. Maybe, he should have turned the light on and bathed them both in blue fluorescence, maybe it would have suppressed the romantic fancies that were careening on the edge of his thoughts. 

The ones where he trusted Tom enough to let him touch his shoulders properly, to press his own palm into them, holding Harry still, or, maybe, skim his fingers over his neck, touching the muscles, and the tendons, and the pulse with the same delicacy that he used to touch the precious objects that he sold. As foolish, and frankly irresponsible, as it sounded, Harry would like to be precious to someone.

Even if that someone was Tom. 

With a continuing, and almost unnerving, tenderness, Tom repositioned his head, inclining it with the tips of his fingers and not by pulling his hair as Harry has anticipated he might.   
“Keep your head back and keep it still,” he murmured with such a softness to his tone that it made the muscles in Harry’s back unclench. Though he tensed again just seconds later when Tom surreptitiously smoothed the pads of his fingers down Harry’s cheek, running his fingers over the stubble, before following the natural curve down the centre of his throat, his thumb brushing over the jugular vein and lingering on the pulse for one, morbid, second too long. 

But before Harry could protest, Tom’s hands were falling away and picking up the brush again. The lather was cool against Harry’s skin and brush scratched, but Tom was still more careful with his face than even Harry was. Part of the problem was that Harry had always found shaving to be a frustrating inconvenience, even with the use of twenty-first-century accessories, and compared to them, this particular method was especially archaic, but he didn’t quite trust himself to use magic.

Compared to all that, Tom felt like a natural. His hands using the right balance of light-fingeredness and pressure to tilt Harry’s head this way and that, smoothing the white lather that looked rather like seafoam caught on the shoreline, into every groove and over every ridge. Always with this soft cyclical motion that drew great circles over Harry’s face like an abstract artist might to begin his masterpiece. 

“Are you having regrets yet?” Tom murmured, as he painted along the line of Harry’s jaw, his other hand supporting his neck and his fingers burying themselves in the damp curls of Harry’s hair, and it was just so _tender_ that it made Harry’s own heart ache and wish that the world had been fashioned a little differently.

“So?” Tom prompted when he didn’t say anything. 

“No,” Harry said, a little too sharply, perhaps, given how genuinely _nice_ Tom was being—suspiciously, perhaps, and maybe Harry should be trying to work out his angle, or at least, stopping himself from sinking quite so _willing_ into the hot molasses that composed Tom’s aura. 

“Are you sure?” Tom said, putting down the brush and placing both his hands on the base of Harry’s neck; they were warm and dry, and pressure of them being there, pushed all the oxygen out of Harry’s lungs and he was left gaping like a fish because how many times had he thought about this? Though, despite the now steady throb of his heart, Harry tried not to let his absolute desperation to be touched show too much, lest Tom think he had an advantage.

But Tom must have still caught the momentary bliss on Harry’s face in the mirror because he lingered there a while longer—just holding him until the rest of the world melted away, and his entire universe was made up of this bathroom and his entire history was just him and Tom stretching this moment out for eternity. 

“Are you sure?” Tom repeated as he removed his right hand from Harry's shoulder and leaned over to pick up the razor from where it sat on the edge of the bath. For a moment, Tom just held it, balanced, across his palm, probably feeling how cool it was on his skin. But then he flicked out the blade in an unnerving demonstration of expertise, and Harry was reminded that whilst Tom was a cultivated man on the outside—complete with a charming personality and a handsome veneer—that wasn’t what he was underneath.

The boy underneath was scrappy; he had had to fight for everything he had, and, as a result, Harry didn’t doubt that Tom was well acquainted with the methods of mutilation beyond the magical and that he knew how to use that razor for far more…sinister purposes than merely shaving. It was obvious by the way he gripped it slackly, almost carelessly, in his palm, as though he was testing the weight, before wrapping his fingers lazily around the handle. 

“I told you: no,” Harry said, “I don’t have regrets.”

Tom smiled, “you know,” he said, running his thumb absently over the smooth pearl of the handle, “you’re quite amusing when you lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

This time Tom raised a brow and looked at his reflection, “yes, you are, Harry,” he said, before leaning closer, the razor blade still negligently, or perhaps purposefully, exposed. “I can feel it in your pulse,” Tom murmured as he lifted the razor to Harry’s skin and with a hypnotic combination of deliberateness and delicacy, ran the first line down from the cheekbone to the middle of Harry’s neck, lingering at the pulse point even though he had no need to. 

Without meaning to, Harry shivered and squeezed his legs together, making the water slop ever so slightly with the movement. There had been nothing untoward in Tom’s approach, but suddenly, Harry felt rather more aware of himself, and of his current nakedness. Perhaps he should have put some swim shorts on, though that would probably have looked more suspicious.

So, he just had to sit back and keep as still as he could whilst Tom did what Harry himself had asked him to do. 

He was good at it, though. His every action was considered and calm, and as Tom dragged the blade over his skin, again and again, he was not as business-like as Harry had hoped, in fact, he was about as far from that characterisation as physically possible. Instead of being mechanical and perfunctory—merely performing the action requested of him—Tom was deliberate and slow, lazily dragging the razor over his skin, almost making it burn with gorgeous friction. 

And though Tom was concentrating on what he was doing with a singular sense of purpose, Harry couldn’t help but tense as he dipped the razor into the water, the blade hitting the side of the bathtub with a clang that got his heart thrumming, before rebounding to make the toe catch on the edge of Harry’s thigh, though whether it was intentional or not Harry couldn’t tell. In the water, a faint foam rose to the surface and simply collected there for a moment before disbanding.

But he barely got to watch it before Tom was tilting his head back and dragging the edge of the blade over his skin again, this time along the line of his jaw, or following the natural contour of his cheek, or sliding unnecessarily down his throat. Each time with the same unbearable meticulousness that got Harry—subconsciously, he’d like to claim—leaning back into Tom’s hands.

Having someone take this much _care_ of him, was far more soothing than Harry was prepared to admit, but the simplicity of it was almost infuriating. The fact that Tom could come here and turn his spine to liquid and his plans to mush just by tenderly _touching_ him was frankly galling, but Harry still lay back further; he still slid under the warmth of the water and melted just a little more whenever Tom slid the razor over his skin. 

Though, despite his insides unwinding, Harry kept half an eye on the mirror, and, more specifically, on Tom’s reflection. At this particular angle, Harry could see the elegance of Tom’s fingers as he gripped the handle and how he altered the angle of his wrist to keep the shave smooth and even. Harry kept watching as those fingers dipped into the water again and again—each time moving a little closer to his skin—as Tom superficially cleaned the blade until it was shining silver and dripping with bubbles.

It was beautiful.

So much so that it was almost a shame as the last line of lather was stripped from his skin, and Harry tried to shift position; nothing serious, just pulling himself up from where he’d slipped down under the water—a little too comfortable under Tom’s careful hands to be sufficiently vigilant. 

But Tom held him still. 

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” Tom murmured; he was done, Harry could see that in the mirror, and yet Tom’s hand remained, holding the razor and pressing it against Harry’s throat. Whilst his other hand was placed firmly on the back of Harry’s neck, keeping him stationary, though the thumb was rubbing against the skin in such a soothing way that Harry almost relaxed into Tom’s touch again, _almost_. 

“Do you know what I could do to you right now, Harry?” Tom murmured, tilting the blade just enough that it pressed into his skin, grazing at the very crest of Harry’s throat like lover’s kiss. “Do you know how _easy_ it would be?”

Harry swallowed, the water-warmed metal was biting at his skin, and his heart was pounding, and the angle that Tom was keeping his neck was awkward, and the bathroom was entirely too hot and entirely too small for his comfort. Harry swallowed again. “What are you talking about, Tom?” he said slowly. 

Tom pushed the razor closer to the crest and slid it up and down to rub the skin raw. “Just because you’re amusing when you lie,” he said, “it doesn’t mean that playing the fool suits you, Harry,” he continued, not removing either his hand or the razor from its precarious position against his throat. “Now, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about hurting me too,” Tom said, “marring me, maiming me, perhaps even murdering me—I know you have…” Tom paused to stroke his spare hand along Harry’s neck, “…because I know what a man contemplating murder looks like.”

The final words of that sentence held a weight that stayed hanging in the air long after he’d spoken, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder whether Tom had seen this man across the street or in his own mirror. For, whilst Harry could take an educated guess that he probably had, he didn’t _know_ that Tom had ever killed anyone, especially not in a way that was so… crude. 

Unlike murder by magic, which contained a fabled disconnect, where you knew what you were doing, but at the same time it was easy to pretend that it wasn’t you and that the moral veil you wore was still intact; when using a gun, or a knife, or even your own hands, you didn’t have that luxury and, so they all seemed to hold this, immense, moral, weight that would link in a chain behind you forevermore. 

“So, have you, Harry?” Tom said, interrupting. 

“Maybe—” Tom pushed the blade harder into his skin, testing the limits of the epidermis, and Harry caved quicker than he’d have liked. “Yes—yes, I have,” he said, though it came out more breathless than it should have done because his heart was still pounding, partly because Tom could, actually, kill him if he wanted to, and partly because he was pretty sure Tom wasn’t going to and that feeling of invincibility was _electrifying_. 

Tom leaned closer, the razor scraping over the flat of his chin, “how would you do it?” he asked, and the question genuinely threw Harry off because who wanted to know how they would be murdered if given the opportunity? 

“Why—why would you ask that?” Harry stuttered out; he had thought about it, after all, he had to, it was the entire reason that he was here in the first place, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to talk about it, especially not with the very person who was its starring subject. Anyway, the whole scenario that he had imagined—built for himself as he lay awake, staring at the ceiling—was far too _intimate_ to be shared.

“Because I’m interested,” Tom replied, with an alarming degree of casualness, as though he knew exactly what Harry had been mulling over in the last few months, and merely wanted him to admit it out loud. But, given that that was unlikely, Tom was just being macabre for the sake of it, and he didn’t look inclined to drop the conversation—not if the tilt of his head and the slight upturn of his mouth was anything to go by. 

Harry exhaled, rubbing his palms against his legs under the water; he wasn’t getting out of this conversation, not with Tom so unbearably close, and the gleaming edge of the razor still pressed to his throat. 

“I’d use my hands.”

Tom smiled at the confession and hummed an affirmation to himself. “How intimate,” he murmured, lowering the razor so that Harry could breathe without fearing the splitting of his arteries, “tell me more.”

Harry swallowed and he could still feel the toe of the razor pushing into his throat; maybe he should have been scared, and his heart was certainly throbbing, and his pulse was agonising, but he couldn’t find it in him to feel fear.   
“I’d get you on the sofa—in the sitting room,” he said eventually, torn between closing his eyes and reliving the fantasy he’d only ever thought about, and keeping them open to witness Tom’s every reaction.

He kept them open, and breathed deep and slow, building the vision up in his head before he let it spill out into the real world, probably mutating as it did so. It had certainly altered dramatically from when he first met Tom; moving from something quick and clinical to something slow and personal—dare he say—sensual. 

“And…” Harry faulted; he’d never actually said it out loud before—because that would make it real.

“And?” Tom said, putting the razor down now, but still, unquestionably, out of Harry’s reach, and sliding his hands up into Harry’s hair and lacing the damp curls around his fingers gently enough that Harry didn’t object, but firm enough to hold his head back and make him stare up at the off-white colour of the ceiling, currently coated with the honey tints of the evening sun.   
“What happens next, Harry?” Tom murmured; his mouth warm and wet and entirely too close to his ear. 

Harry swallowed again and exhaled so slowly, if Tom _was_ going to kill him, however unlikely the probability of that was, then he might as well admit what the fantasy that had been all but consuming him recently was.   
“Your hands are holding my waist…” Harry started; even now imagining the weight of Tom’s palms pressed into the hollow between his hipbones and his ribs, they’d be heavy—possessive—and so warm that he would be able to feel their heat through his shirt. 

In the pause that followed such an innocent yet both profound and perverse confession, Tom’s reflection raised an eyebrow, his lips parting and the heat of his tongue burning the back of Harry’s neck, a perfectly curated expression that revealed nothing.   
“Go on,” he murmured, the words catching just a tiny bit on the tip of his tongue and sounding a little breathless—maybe Tom was more interested than he was prepared to admit. 

“Your hands are on me,” Harry repeated, more confidently now, “and my hands are around your neck—I can feel your pulse—and I begin to squeeze…” The words were just coming now, as though the lock gates were open, and he just couldn’t stop the flow of water pouring through. “…I like it,” Harry continued, “and you’re into it, adoring it—begging for it even—but then I don’t stop squeezing. Even as you realise and you struggle against me, I don’t stop.” Harry paused and raised his eyes to meet Tom’s in the mirror, “I don’t stop squeezing until you’re dead, Tom.”

And there is was—the sick fantasy that was the ultimate aim. 

Harry watched as it was Tom’s turn to swallow thickly. “Is that so?” he said eventually, a slight tightness affecting every syllable and a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Because I must say, that sounds… tempting,” he continued, though an objection seemed to hang off his tongue. “But,” Tom said slowly, the objection now mere moments away, “the thing is,” he continued, softly, scratching his nails just right over Harry’s scalp, “I don’t believe you, Harry.”

It was a simple enough objection but being so blatantly disregarded still knocked the air out of Harry’s lungs, and Tom took the opportunity. “I just think you’d prefer it…” he began before pausing, to slide his hand out of Harry’s hair and, instead, snake it around to the front of his neck; his fingers lingering at the hollows and tracing the lines of his collarbones with the very tips, “…if someone else were to take control.”

As Tom spoke, he wrapped his hand around Harry’s throat; his palm pushed against the crest and his fingers pressing tight into the sides, and still, Tom’s reflection stayed serene—entirely undisturbed by a violence that would have run anyone else ragged. Harry sucked air between his teeth, the grip wasn’t quite hard enough to choke him, but the pressure as he breathed and tried to swallow was undeniable, so too was the throbbing of his pulse against Tom’s fingers. 

Trying to focus, Harry kept his eyes on the mirror and its reflection that looked like every fantasy Harry refused to believe he had. Tom’s hand was clenched around his throat, and seeing it made it so _real_ that it forced the air in Harry’s lungs become sluggish and sticky, and he watched in a strange awed horror as his chest rose and fell with increasing rapidity and every breath became a shallow imitation of the one before it. Tom’s mouth twitched up into a smile. 

He let go. 

Immediately, Harry fell forward, his right hand splashing into the water as he coughed and choked on the influx of air and the sudden manual control of his lungs. Tom just watched, his eyes shining and his hand flexing, as though he was intrigued by his own capabilities—by his own power to hold other people’s lives quite literally in his hands. 

Tom was still looking at his hands when he spoke. 

“Can you imagine doing that to me, Harry?” he said, speaking ever so casually about his own murder as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “Can you imagine what it would feel like?”  
The words sat heavy in the air, weighing down on Harry’s lungs as he thought about the possibilities. In his silence, Tom ran a hand up Harry’s back, his fingers bumping over his spine. “What it would look like?” he continued, as his hand slid higher, warm and wet with the water that made Harry shiver more than he’d like. “What it would _sound_ like?” Tom murmured right in his ear.

Harry didn’t want to think about it—well, that was a lie—he desperately wanted to think about it, but now whilst he was so unbearably exposed and every word that Tom uttered left a trail of prickling skin down the back of his neck, not that his reactions deterred Tom. He could see him in the mirror, the way that his mouth was upturned at the corners and the very tip of his tongue was visible between his teeth.

Tom was enjoying himself too much to stop now. 

That much was obvious by the very fact that his mouth was so obscenely close to Harry’s skin that he might as well have been smattering kisses along the length. “If you learn to trust me,” Tom murmured, “then maybe I’ll let you have your way with me.” As he spoke, Tom’s hand back to slowly rubbing the nape of Harry’s neck, hooking itself into his hairline and pulling his head back further. 

“Maybe I’ll let you do whatever you want,” Tom continued, still smooth and slow and silky soft in a way that made Harry’s stomach twist. “But you _have_ to learn to trust me first.”

“I _do_ trust you,” Harry repeated, though the tone sounded like a lie and it possessed a definite quiver on the final syllable. He did _want_ to trust Tom, but how could he, when Tom had that black glitter diffusing through his irises, and that silk-sharp smile that was all teeth. But then again, if he were Tom, he wouldn’t trust a man who’d just admitted a murder fantasy that was as sick as it was intimate.

“Why don’t you prove it, then, Harry?”

“Didn’t I already?” Harry snapped, as he tried to turn to face Tom, incensed at the fact that he was so easily able to turn a situation around to his advantage; but Tom’s hand went straight back to his shoulder and held him still again. It was obvious then, that if he wanted Tom to trust him, he was going to have to play on Tom’s terms. 

“No, Harry, you haven’t, yet,” Tom said slowly, as he picked up the razor and gripping it loosely again, his thumb rubbing over the tang, before flicking the blade out once more, “so why don’t you sit back, relax, and let me do whatever I want to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, this feels a little incoherent, so apologies for that.


End file.
